In it, Bezos provides advice for new entrepreneurs that is actually fairly reasonable, but which always ends with the idea that no matter what happens, eventually Amazon will step in and destroy whatever startup that you might hope to build.

The reason this article hits a bit close to home is because of a Gizmodo piece from earlier in July that argues that “At This Point, Amazon Can Crush a Company Just By Filing for a Trademark.” Jones points out that Amazon is such a large company that simply announcing a plan to compete in a specific market is enough to send other company’s stock toppling, citing the unfortunate state of Blue Apron’s IPO after Amazon announced it was filing a “meal-kit trademark that covers prepared food kits composed of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, fruit and/or vegetables . . . ready for cooking and assembly as a meal.”

The worst thing is that, while they were aware that Amazon was working in the space, they did not know that the new device would make theirs truly obsolete until the product was officially announced.

Ivers warns that other companies that work with Amazon to develop Alexa-related devices should be careful that they don’t make the same mistakes he did, although he doesn’t believe that the company is actually malicious.

But with quotes like, “Be prepared, among other things, for my company to duplicate your product or service and sell it at prices you can never compete with, all the while turning your board members against you one by one and, eventually, buying your company for less than it’s worth just so we can shut it down,” clearly The Onion doesn’t see things the same way.